#some people say 'destroy society' and mean it as 'destroy patriarchal class systems and their racializing assemblages'

[cheesebearger]

full on begging anti-civ people to explain just a little bit more what they mean by "destroy society" and "everything means nothing" and "civilization must end and all products of civilization" i desperately need you to clarify what you mean. those are intricate concepts that encompass vast swaths of the lived experiences of all people on earth, and it is deeply confusing.

instead of slapping down every possible idea for living more sustainably as a species, i would genuinely like to see some alternatives suggested. what do you want the future to look like? what does the "end of society" mean to you? because i feel as though the primary issue among anarchists is that no one can quite agree on what they mean by that, and what they want to see happen in the future. i struggle with it myself!

i just don't think defeatist rhetoric is very actionable, and i also think many anti-civ bloggers tend towards using nihilism to avoid engaging with the practicalities of what their philosophy is asking for - to the point where it gets rather confusing trying to figure out what, exactly, they believe the world should become in the aftermath of the destruction of civilization.

[nix-that-rad-lass]

Ok here’s another one stay with me it’s very rambly because I wrote it at 4am LMAOOO

Anyways the gist of this is I think that patriarchy and monogamy have worked hand in hand to derail the development and evolution of the human species, and liberating women from those and encouraging women to be picky with who they reproduce with, IF they reproduce, is extremely powerful and important for our species and the planet as a whole.

Higher BMI/more robust body type is associated with increased fertility, lower infant mortality, and lower rates of maternal mortality and morbidity.

This suggests that the common preference for thinner women, especially in western societies, is a socially acquired one, and not biologically founded.

As others before me have said, the societally conditioned attraction to thin, “weak”, or even pubescent-appearing bodies is likely a result of thousands of years of males having to forcefully and violently maintain their power over women. Smaller women are easier to overpower.

It is distinctly unnatural for males to harm the females they desire to mate with.

Males naturally seek to engage in mutual competition for female attention.

I hypothesize that as male-male competition has become scorned in a patriarchal society, men have turned to engaging in physical combat with women instead. this is, as previously established, unnatural and a net negative both on individuals and the development of the species as a whole

This does not account for the effect of violent pornography in shaping the sexual appetites and desires of modern males. However, this likely has a compounding effect, which is disastrous for women.

Polygyny (a male having multiple female sexual partners) is associated with higher rates of disease and infection.

It is unknown if the same is true for polyandry (a female having multiple male sexual partners)

It is thought that lifelong monogamy has been considered the norm for less than 10,000 years.

Monogamy as the primary mating system for humans arose around the same time as agriculture.

Also coinciding with the rise of agriculture is the concept of personal or private property.

It is thought that monogamy arose as males began to hoard resources for themselves and wished to pass those resources and their means of production down solely to their own heirs.

From this it can be assumed that patriarchy arose with agriculture, and monogamy followed. As males were the dominant class in early civilizations, women would have been treated as property.

I hypothesize that patriarchal monogamy has been impeding the development and evolution of our species since it's creation.

In many species, females are considered the “choosy” sex, and males the “competitive” sex. While both sexes would compete for mating rights to some degree, in most mammals and birds (the two classes of animal considered the most intelligent, albeit via convergent evolution) males are far more likely to be engaging in sexual competition.

I believe that since the creation of agriculture and thus patriarchy, female humans have been robbed of our natural role as the decision makers of reproduction.

As female people were treated as property, we lost our right to say no or to choose a different mate.

I believe this has led to a massive proportion of “unfit” genes being passed down from unfit men. (i.e. genes that would not have otherwise been passed down if women had free mate choice)

Women lost our free choice in mates when patriarchy arose, and I think our entire species has suffered for it.

Our evolution and development has been nearly destroyed by men seeking to usurp their role in reproduction.

Women, as the creators of life, who must input exponentially more energy and effort into producing young, have the right to choose when to reproduce and with whom. Men have fundamentally damaged our species by removing the biological and evolutionary right of women to freely choose our mates and partners.

It is established that depending on her point in her hormonal cycle, a (straight or bi) woman may find males of varying levels of so-called masculinity more or less attractive. In general, the day of and following ovulation is when women are most attracted to very masculine men, and the rest of the cycle women are more likely to be attracted to more neutral or feminine men.

It is hypothesized that this is due to a dichotomy between attraction to physical and thus genetic fitness (masculine man) compared to attraction to a suitable partner for emotional connection, child rearing, and other needs.

There is evidence to suggest that women’s bodies retain DNA from previous pregnancies. It is unknown how or why this occurs, and what effect it may have on future offspring.

There are some hypotheses that the leftover DNA could interact or “attach” to current/future embryos and allow traits from past successful sexual partners to occur in new offspring. !!This is not substantiated as it is a mere hypothesis!!

There is increasing evidence that a woman’s body is an active partner in fertilization, with the cervix being capable of contracting or loosening to repel or attract sperm, in addition to the cervix being capable of “housing” sperm for up to a week to be released as necessary for a potential conception.

There is also increasing amounts of proof that ova actively choose which sperm to engulf, and will repel or even kill sperm that do not meet certain chemical or hormonal requirements.

With all this in mind, it makes sense that the natural sexuality of (heterosexual or bisexual) women seeks a low to moderate number of diverse male partners in her lifetime to ensure the best mix of genes and traits for offspring. (assuming this is with intent to procreate, which, as we know, is not the only reason people have sex)

This also implies that the societal expectation of ��virginity” and lifelong monogamy is against the best evolutionary interest of women and humans in general, as this severely limits genetic diversity and crossover.

Free mate choice for women is a defining step in female liberation. It is also the necessary next step to continue the development of our species.

When given free choice, women are also likely to have fewer children, but with better partners, and are able to provide better care. (quality over quantity, so to speak)

Depending on culture, health, and resources, women who have free mate choice have between 1 and 4 children on average

coincidentally, this amount of children closely aligns with the number of offspring produced by our close relatives: chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas

As our global population continues to grow, it is imperative that women give birth only when they choose to and only with partners they freely chose.

Especially as patriarchy and capitalism rule, women must reclaim our position as the creators of life. We must reclaim our autonomy- for the sake of ourselves, our species, and the world as a whole.

Allowing males unchecked sexual access to women is allowing “unfit” genetics to be passed along, is stripping women of free choice, limiting the resources available for children, and destroying the resources of the planet.

Patriarchy and male control over women has been devastating to our species and the world at large.

The most powerful thing women can do now is to be choosy and have exceptionally high standards for any potential mate and partner, or to refuse to take a mate or reproduce at all.

For millennia women have been stripped of our autonomy and reduced to property and incubators.

No longer should we be passive.

Here’s one of the sources i used for this, i skimmed a lot of others to double check my rambles but didn’t really directly quote a lot of them. eventually i’ll find the studies on some of the points i made.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4377665

[janiedean]

Without going into terfism, how then do you think feminism should fight to become the norm? Normal ways don't work and women and afab people keep being oppressed everywhere in the world. Like, peacefully opposing the patriarchial system didn't work. We need to take stronger actions.

I mean I don’t think you’re completely right in the sense that this question requires a lot of space to be answered and honestly I’m running on very little brain juice these days but:

'everywhere in the world’ is already a thing that can’t be used here as an argument because like a woman who lives in saudi arabia is more discriminated/oppressed than one who lives in any western european country and even within that a woman in europe can be discriminated bc sexism and not lawfully and what a woman from saudi arabia needs is not what someone in the united states needs so we can’t presume that if a thing works here then it works somewhere else

this goes also with cultural backgrounds bc like a woman in japan might be societally discriminated for wholly different reasons than a woman in italy and so on so I’d like to state that each single country has different issues and presuming that there’s one feminism to rule them all that would solve every issue is like... would be nice but that’s not how it works

‘peacefully opposing the patriarchal system didn’t work’ is a statement that honestly leaves me a little iffy because like... since feminism existed (as in, a century and a half roughly) as you know an ideology that you call like that women in most of western countries have equal rights as men, can vote, can divorce, should receive equal pay by law (then the fact that they laws aren’t apply is another problem), won’t get their kids taken away if they’re not the breadwinner, can work/study without people thinking it’s just for men, can get an abortion or are on their way to (never mind regressive places but I’m speaking in general), can press charges against rapists etc like... it didn’t work? it did work, the problem is that since we lived in a patriarchal society until that happened we still live in societies that didn’t shake the sexism away but like... when the french revolution happened in 1789 it didn’t automatically destroy all monarchies, and women having gotten equal rights doesn’t mean we don’t have to work at dismantling what remains of patriarchal society - and I’m talking about western countries or like y’know countries aligned with that set of values bue like it didn’t work? it did work. if it didn’t I’d have been married with kids I didn’t want and having barely studied until junior high if I was lucky at this point in my life unless I was like rich or coming from a class upper enough I could afford to do something better with my life and so on instead of like studying to work in politics hopefully and I’m speaking just about me 

‘around the world’ issue: until people don’t put two and two together and realize that most places where women don’t have equal rights and are oppressed are theocracies we aren’t going anywhere imvho but like... you have to look at each single situation and support the activists there? like if a woman from saudi arabia who’s fighting for equal rights in saudi arabia tells you that they need this this and that you don’t go like BUT ACTUALLY I THINK, bc she’ll know better than you (and I’m using saudi arabia as an example bc idt we can argue about those women being oppressed)

and with that I mean that I’m done with western feminists speaking over idk iranian feminist refugees but that’s another problem entirely

in your own country you also have to be intersectional and work with other men too because ding ding if you’re like some people whose marches I went to who go like ‘if men want to be here they march in the back and anyway you don’t bring your male sons to this type of events’ then you go not fucking anywhere bc you have to work with the men who are not sexist, you have to take into account the issues of each single category of woman there is and not presume everyone has the same issues and like... not actually decide that by being a woman you automatically know better than other women which would already be a great way to make sure ppl didn’t think all feminists are like the radfems

working on dismantling patriarchal remains of society if you live in one where you have equal rights which can be done peacefully by idk voting for people who are pro women’s rights/don’t want to take them away, supporting the right organizations, get involved with your reps etc etc etc like if you wanna do activism that’s how it works but violent protest esp in a society where you do have equal rights on paper doesn’t exactly work

also support feminists from places where that doesn’t happen

I’m not going to go and say WHAT SHOULD OTHER WOMEN IN PLACES I DON’T LIVE DO but like... if saudi arabian women went for violent revolt I wouldn’t blame them but that’s because they live someplace where they can’t drive without a man in the car last I checked and if they do you support them but again that’s what they need to do not what you need to do as a westerner and sure af going there and preaching isn’t your job

there’s a hundred different patriarchies supposing that you can dismantle them all the same way is like... we all wish

tldr: I’m not a gender studies history professor and I sure af don’t have a solution but I’d like to presume that sticking for feminism that includes everyone including men who are legit pro women’s rights without talking about any other woman, doing on ground activism, not vote for assholes and looking at what policies they preach, being intersectional and keeping in mind that feminism = equal rights/equality not doing actual regressive things like idk that time someone said separating male and female children in obligatory school was a great idea (it’s not) is how you make sure we don’t lose what rights we gained in the past century or so, and surely like violent protest or making generalizations or terfism are so not the ways to go imvho *shrug*

[benlaksana]

Coming Home

If there is one constant emotional response that my mind and body has conjured since coming back to Indonesia, it is anger. The reasons are plentiful. Chronic social and economic injustice, growing government oppression, sheer incompetency of many government officials, religious conservatism, as the proverbial saying goes, the list goes on.

And now with the coronavirus devastatingly consuming Indonesia and my government’s response has not only been weak and slow, lacking in coordination, but also simply at many times blatantly incompetent, anti-science and anti-expertise, resulting in the deaths of many including doctors and nurses, and with no full lockdowns initiated, no mass testing, just some half-baked government encouragement to physical distancing and good hygiene. I’ve observed that this time not only am I consumed with fervent anger but at many times deep sadness and crippling fear. An unholy trinity. In the name of anger, sadness and lingering fear.

Here’s some trivia and personal info for you folks. Did you know that Tuberculosis (TB) usually leaves scars on lungs it once infected and even though it’s been decades since my bout with TB, my lungs today, as you might expect, are not in tip-top shape. So that’s my pre-existing condition that at times, at many times, throws me into a panic and into a sudden cleaning spree. Wipe here, wipe there, disinfect door knobs, drowning recently handled money in warm soapy water. Irrational fear? On the contrary my beautiful friends. Indonesia has one of the highest Covid death rates in the world and with Covid patients on the rise but not at its peak, our already sparse healthcare system is already showing its cracks. Again, just to remind you, Indonesia is not even near the peak and we’re not even doing massive tests but everything is already hanging on a thread. Adding to this misery, the lack of some kind of social safety net has this climate of dread creeping up on me, this I acknowledge and I am trying as much as I can in keeping this at bay. Dread induced paralysis is not something I can to endure at the moment.  

That’s some personal (slightly existential) rant right there.

But I understand that I’m lucky and painfully privileged to be able to work from home unlike so many others. So since at this moment my productivity rate is reaching zero and I’m basically pushing away work and other responsibilities as much as I can (which will probably come back and haunt me soon), let me just first reflect on life at the moment, updates on other things aside from this feeling of impending doom.

I’ve realized that I do not update this blog of mine as often as I would like to. Desires are kept as desires, and slowly wither away as desires. Yet as 2020 dawned on me and ages with uncertainty I spent my time re-reading old books that I have read many years ago and some of my old blog posts as well. Beginning with my first blog post which is now the ripe old age of 10 years old. One decade old. With the breakneck speed of change of today’s internet, 10 years is perhaps close to immortality in internet years. That being said, I still use Hotmail for my main email which I’ve had since 1998, the year I was introduced to the internet...and politics.

It was 13th of May 1998. I was at home with my dad as schools and offices were closed. The day before that soldiers opened fire at a student demonstration in front the University of Trisakti, Jakarta. Four students were killed, riots and demonstrations were happening everywhere the following day. So most people decided to stay home.

I remember my dad narrating the 1998 May protests as we attentively watched the event unravel through our old school CRT TV. My dad was thankfully percipient enough to refuse to go to his office during that week, but he did have friends in high places so it wasn’t much of a surprise if he received some kind of insiders info. I was about 12 years young at that time, on the cusp of teen hood. Puberty was on my mind, but that moment of watching a historical event unfold (which of course I did not understand it as something momentous) with my dad explaining with excitement of what was going on, even though I sure as hell did not understand the most of it, was illuminating. A father and son bonding session as result of reformasi. That sounded like a thesis topic: Family Relations and Social Change: Exploring Familial Relations through the 1998 Reformasi. (Hah!)

It did however shape my values and ideas that I still hold on to this day not only on politics per se but what I wanted or expected from this thing called the nation-state. I have to say that the May 1998 riots and demonstrations, the visualization of the riots on TV and my dad narrating in the background constantly interrupting the reporter, was the reason why I remember that day so clear. It made an indelible mark on me. I can’t even begin to imagine the impact to those who were physically effected by the riots, houses and stores burned down, people being raped and/or murdered..

About a week after the riots, on the 21st of May 1998 President Soeharto resigned after 32 years in power. I saw my dad cheering, again not fully grasping the reasons why, although he did try his best to explain. But it piqued my interest in politics, and being told that this this new thing (really new for me at that time) called the internet had much to offer about what was happening then, a few weeks after that, using my mom’s 36.6 kbps dial-up modem that I was awfully proud of, I registered for a shiny new Hotmail account. In hopes of joining mailing lists.

Wasantara-net, owned by Indonesia’s postal service, was my family’s choice for the internet service provider. I hated them as they were first-class in unreliability, but they were the only providers to be able to connect my house, on the edge of bogor, to the world wide web. My first few emails, if again I remember correctly, were chain mails about the May riots that I subscribed through questionable mIRC chats. Chats that start with A/S/L, age, sex, location, and either ends in hook ups, or being involved in something you’re too young or ignorant to fully understand.

Being young(er) and wanting to be part of something important is such a motivating factor in us actually doing and becoming something. With Carl Gustav Jung in mind, being young or old, we are but “modern man in search of meaning” and being part of something greater than ourselves does still give me meaning.

Fast forward a few decades, I’ve noticed that you get a raised eyebrow when you tell people that you’ve been using the same email for more than 20 years now, and you get double raised eyebrows and an instance of wincing, once they find out that said email is a Hotmail account. I am coming up with less and less excuses of why I haven’t migrated fully to other emails. But hey, you know what they say, habit brings comfort, repetition brings comfort, knowledge that arises from experience, from personal history, brings comfort. Although not always, the past brings comfort, while the future which is riddled with unpredictability is lamented and brings worry if not angst. Comfort though, I have come to understand, brings laziness and at many times dullness.

It is however always interesting looking at one’s own past and how it is intertwined with the past of others. I think I’ve written about this a number of times, and most of my writings are born from the act of retrospect. I often assume that I would not be able to talk about my future if I never look at my past, but what also happens is that I also end up talking more about my past or at the very most my present rather than talking/thinking about my future. Is that bad? Is that good? Am I shying away from discussions about my particular future? Maybe, I don’t have an answer to that now. But I know it’s there, tucked away in the back of my mind so I’ll probably talk more about that someday. And with Covid-19 destroying all of my plans in the near future that someday will probably come sooner.

Coming home to Indonesia, after a number of years abroad, I have also come to realize, sadly, that many of my social activities here in this space which I reluctantly call home, are more often than not, performative acts that I do not like performing for. I am basically faking it and I am doing this by fulfilling a cultural and social role that I necessarily do not have strong feelings for, or even just feelings for, but I have adapted myself into it. Somewhat. The reason why I do this is simply out of respect of others. Things that do not give meaning for me, has often been deeply meaningful for others and expressing it verbally does not bode well for maintaining relationships. I am happy to say that I have Rara to remind me when I have become too logical (I am happy to say that I have Rara to remind about many things in life) in understanding the meaning of culture for many. But it is, simply put, not without its personal struggles.

Being a son, being a son-in-law, being a younger and the youngest child in a family oriented, confuscianist-style, hierarchical, the-individual-is-constantly-attached-to-the-social kind of society. And then being a husband in a patriarchal society, where I am expected to fill a kind of leadership role that tires, bores and disinterests me.

(On a side note: for some reason, I have often come across this odd discussion of alpha/beta male/female amongst my peers here. Which I find interesting as it denotes a fixation to hierarchy and also the assumption of fixed temperaments/personalities of an individual across space and time. Are they basically saying that agency of one’s self perceived to be rarely possible? Is change and adapting to a situation impossible? )

Then without doubt as a citizen of a nation that I superficially identify with. How can I ever identify with a nation that happily and openly oppresses others for the sake of unity? And not only rarely admits it but even more rare tries to amend it. It is a simple rhetorical question.

In sum, I have to be honest with myself here, coming back home to Indonesia is not home for me and I don’t think it will ever be one. It is more of a burden than something that brings joy.

The food is great here and I have my family here which is also nice but life of course is much, much more than just culinary preferences or familial ties. I am losing my sense of self here, and it is destructive for me. I am losing myself.

Fully realizing this I was looking for a sense of direction when I reread some of my old already read books that once inspired and also my old blog posts these past few weeks. At the crux of it, this blog has always been for me. It is shared publicly in hopes of others sharing what they have learned through life and what I have done wrong in my life. And I have done many wrongs that have not been righted, some no longer even have the possibility of being righted.

Rereading my blog, I realize much like others, that our attempts in finding meaning, and our meanings when they are found are frail and delicate. It is constantly assailed and it is easily lost, and at times harder to find when lost. Life it seems always tries its best to rob you of meaning. Not because it is intent in doing so, but because the very nature of life is in its impermanence. Everything is impermanent including meaning itself.

Intellectually and experientially I understand this. But again like many, I’ve still tried to find meaning in others, and much like many I’ve lost these people in which I have found meaning in. This is the constant dillema as naturally social creatures.

It is perhaps in our nature to be contradictory, or to live in denial, to assume that meaning and the people or objects that give meaning is eternal.

Some of these people that I have acquired meaning from I have forever lost through death, much like so many people out there. I have also lost some rather unintentionally, such as due to spoken words that are not carefully thought out. Some by design, on purpose, with deep intent and thoroughly planned with precision execution, slowly letting go. At other times, a harsh break, a rude awakening on both ends, yet ending in a sigh of relief. As some relationships, although lush with wonderful memories, are never meant to last and can never be let to live in the future. Memories that remain as memories, stories of the past, that do not become worries of the present nor burdens of the future. Our understanding of meaning is often forced to change and to morph and at many times, to end. People and things that once provided meaning no longer do, as people and the things around us change. People including me.

I’ve changed, I know I’ve changed, I’m quieter yet more angry of the world, hopefully a bit more thoughtful of my words and actions. But one thing that hasn’t changed is how I am not done with grief, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be done with it. I’m not even sure if it’s actually grief. Because we all know that the tragedy of growing old, is the tragedy of unwillingly filling your life with regrets and maybe my grief is but a thin veil for my regrets.

One of my plants in my garden died today. A lush rosella bush that I was hoping to make some tea out of its beautiful red flowers. The days are drawing long, and hope is few and far in between.

Be well everyone.

[unconventionalcoven]

Where’s the Magick?

A reading for the collective:

What divine power is coming online? The Fool

What blocks exist in the system to integrating this? Six of Cups

What blocks exist in the collective to integrating this? Ten of Wands

Where in our lives can we be more accepting of others? Eight of Wands

Advise from Spirit on how to step into our power? Ace of Swords

   1.a. What does our society have to gain from this energy?           Three of Cups    1.b. A sign from Spirit for the people to pay attention to:           Page of Cups

   2.a. What darkness of the past must be revealed & healed?           The Magician    2.b. How can the individual do their part to heal it for the collective?           The Empress

   3.a. What future awaits the collective on the horizon?           Nine of Wands    3.b. Where should the collective be focusing our energy?           Four of Wands

   4.a. Where is humanity’s arrow being pointed?            Strength    4.b. A sign from Spirit that you are on the right track:           King of Cups

   5.a. What does the collective stand to gain with this Ace of Swords?           Ace of Pentacles    5.b. How does Spirit guide you to use it?           The Sun

Analysis

I think it’s pretty obvious that the entire Earth is going through a transformational process at the moment, and it is also interesting that there is in particular a resurgence in paganism, witchcraft, and other empowering belief systems. At this moment in time, each individual in the collective is being faced with themselves, and the realization that they are in fact nothing more or less than The Fool, and by understanding what that means we can each come into closer alignment with our highest selves and heal the wounds of the world. The Fool card represents the leap of faith into the unknown, and by accepting oneself as the fool, you free yourself from the idea that you must control the world. Unconditional love is an open hand, and that goes for the tragedies of the world, especially when there is little to nothing you can do personally to affect it. By recognizing the smallness of yourself in the cosmos, you in fact become more powerful. When each of us in society accepts the relative meaninglessness of our lives and what we do in the context of the universe, we gain the gift of the Three of Cups. This card represents most closely the numerological energy of the number 3, and the playful childlike nature of it. Friendship, and the freely flowing of our psychic waters shared with each other is the most important foundation for society and humanity as a whole. This card reminds us of the importance of our relationships and what we have to gain by generously giving of ourselves to those we love: done consciously without the toxicity of codependence, and building the basis upon which we can build up our families, communities, and so forth with informed voluntary interdependence. Remembering we are The Fool, the Three of Cups shows us that by deflating our ego and accepting ourselves as the small imperfect being we are, we can find our most perfect place in society, through healthy and uplifting relationships. Spirit asks us to pay attention to the Page of Cups and what that means to each of us individually. The page is the apprentice, learning the ways of the water element, and I intuit that Spirit is asking us to follow its guidance to situations and opportunities for us to embody the Page of Cups. What this means is different from person to person, but think of what ways in your life you feel your emotions run wild or get the better of you. These are the areas of life and human experience that your soul is being drawn to understand and learn from. Follow your heart where it guides you and examine the lessons it brings you. By integrating the knowledge we gain from pleasure and pain, we transmute unfavorable energy and make the universe an objectively better place.

The systems of power in place, both visible and unknown to us, are suffering from the Six of Cups. This card represents a romanticization of the past, and a longing to go back. I think a most obvious example of this is the nostalgia for the economic prosperity experience by a lot of mostly-white middle class America in the past without the understanding of how that prosperity was built on inequality, oppression, and a robbing of the future in many ways with illegitimate financial practices. The system, however, in this reading relates more to the class system, government, deep state, and how they are shaped by the collective consciousness. (It is also important to note that if you who are reading this are an “awake” individual your consciousness is immensely powerful compared to many others, and where you point your perception is relatively important and it would do well to use your mind responsibly). I asked what darkness of the past is showing up now to be revealed and healed, and received The Magician. It is my understanding that we would all do well to think about our past, and not just the last 150 years. Power is Power. Look at any point in history, how many leaders would be considered even remotely moral or acceptable? How many injustices of the past exist, far bleaker than we care to admit. If you call yourself a witch it is your duty to learn your history. Look at how this power was developed, across cultures, to heal the sick, bring success to crops and business, all the good it could produce, and how the witches specifically were burned. How paganism was stamped out by the Catholic church who turned around and rebranded our traditions and rituals, understanding the power in them. Whether you’re “into” conspiracy theories or not, a small amount of research will show there is absolutely occultism used by the “most powerful” people on this planet. They use the most horrific and dark practices to establish their dominance, all the while convincing the general public that energy work is fake and anyone selling their services is a scam artist. They convince you you need pills to fix diseases caused by pesticides on your food, and criminalize ancient medicines that offer humanity the most benefit. But the age of Pieces is over. The divine feminine awakes, and each of us must embrace The Empress. By healing your divine feminine, and leading as an empress, that is to say, allowing the matriarchy to step into her power in your life, at her rightful place by the side of the patriarchy, holding hands and headed towards a life together, you heal yourself. It has often been said, to truly love oneself and try to heal in a society who’s aims are to convince you that you’re not good enough, is a revolutionary act. Do not look to the patriarchy of the system to try and save you. The structural Saturn (aka Cronos and patriarchal archetype) of all systems is neither good nor bad. It merely follow’s The Empress’s lead. Look to your mother wounds, and allow them to guide you with the Page of Cups to your ascension to an unconditionally loving being. Remember, that the power we are coming into of The Fool, is that of new beginnings, and understand “the system” and whatever that means to you is being blocked by a nostalgia for a past that never was, and never will be. Surrender to the unknown and remember it is okay to start all over.

The Ten of Wands card, suggests that the collective is not being blocked from accepting themselves as The Fool, but instead that our day in the sun is coming. I have great faith in people, and I believe we are all close to seeing how much more we have in common with each other than the difference we now think are so important. But on the horizon, awaits the Nine of Wands. What I see is that the collective is weary and waiting to assume their rightful place, remember the look of satisfaction on the man’s face in the Ten of Wands. His end is in sight. His work is nearly done. And what comes next is holding the line. The Nine of Wands, is a man at war, in battle, taking a knee, and planting firmly in place against his enemy. Remembering that of course cosmically there are no enemies, we are all one, and every experience we have as humans is a game, in the 3D reality we inhabit with our bodies, this knowledge does not mean that you should just give up and let the other side “win” the game. If you’re playing Mario Kart & beat your best friend, that doesn’t undo the love you have for them. It is important to remember discernment, and thinking about what actions are justified. To expand on The Magician, I believe that what is coming is a time of revelation, and a return of magick to the world. There are literally declassified CIA documents about remote viewing, and many other things that demonstrate the current sense (in America particularly) that there is no such thing as magick or spirits and even religion is scoffed at as fairy tales, is completely removed from the reality and science so many people use to disprove it. We are nearing the time to stand our ground, fight for what we believe in, and step into our power, knowing that we are stronger than we have been told or those who would oppress us would give us credit for. We will succeed with the Four of Wands as our focus. I suggest spending some time getting to know the voices in your head. Which thoughts are constructive and coming from your self, and which thoughts have been programmed into you by a society that has been constructed to convince as many people as possible to be soulless cogs in a machine. The Four of Wands asks us to build a life and a family for ourselves. The family can look however it does, tailored to each of us. This energy gives us a home and a love of others worth fighting for. It is becoming increasingly evident, that the chaos of our current times is being coopted by powerful people to steal as much wealth from the collective as possible and destroy the possibility of upward mobility to cement into power those who currently reside at the top. BUY LAND! Build a LEGACY. To paraphrase Hamilton: “plant seeds in a garden you’ll never get to see.” Think about what kind of world you would like to live in ideally, and then look to the Four of Wands to see how you can build this world with your current position in your life and the home you have. This card is about establishing a way of life, and is the most microcosmic understanding of the phrase: “think globally act locally.” Further, as a witch there are literally millions of ways of incorporating the craft into your home-keeping. Get creative, and share your tips & tricks with those close to you.

The Eight of Wands reminds us, that we are all on our journey. When perceiving others, remember they are on their path, and instead of judging them for where they currently are, it would serve you best to instead consider where their actions are leading them. Obviously, there are objectively horrible things being done, all over the world, I could not begin to comprise a list. This does not mean you have to accept bullshit from ANYONE. Remember the Nine of Wands telling you to stand and fight for the Four of Wands you are building. If everything is a game, the whole point of playing is either to win, or have fun! In this case I see the Eight of Wands reminding us, that even as we are faced objectively bad things and people, the course of consciousness is on its path to ascension and the arrow for humanity is headed towards Strength. I find it interesting this card is also of eight energy, and so it’s good to think also of what that means numerological. The number eight is of abundance and wealth, of our plans coming to fruition, it is an energy of things falling into place and coming together. This moment in history, is very interesting, and in retrospect we will see how what we are currently going through is is the contraction pains of birth. We tend and heal the maternal Empress, because she is suffering birthing pains. The new world is being born. There is not much else to say of the Strength card because it is I feel evident how we are all to grow stronger from what we are going through, as we as humans always do after going through a challenge. Instead, remember your own strength as Spirit guides you to embrace the King of Cups. Our divine feminine is in pain, and this is the patriarch she needs. One of love. Do not demonize the divine masculine. See him as completely and complexly as the feminine longs to be seen. Remember he is human too, and we are all 70% water. He too feels the moon pulling his psychic tides, if not as directly as those with a connection to their womb, then through his love for his queen. The King of Cups calls us to look for how we can allow the masculine in our life to be sensitive, vulnerable, and intuitively in connection to their emotion. Allowing us all to flow freely, in the energies that currently call. This may, or may not, manifest as an emotionally mature masculine energy residing in someone in your life; and may tie into building a life with them as suggested by the Four of Cups. 

Finally, Spirit suggests that to fully embody The Fool as we are all being called to do, we should meditate on the Ace of Swords. In my opinion, a more modern representation of the air/thought energy captured by the swords would actually be a light saber. And by looking at the story and philosophy of the Jedi we see a clear picture of how useful one’s thoughts and will can be, as well as how dangerous and damaging. It is after all, a weapon. And still, a sharp edge is a very useful tool. As with all aces, this is a gift and represents a fresh start. Meditation, is perhaps the most fundamental advice for how to acquaint yourself with the Ace of Swords, and offers us a deeper understanding of our own mind, which is the only thing in this universe we have any control over. By respecting and exercising our minds, we stand to gain the Ace of Pentacles. This again is a gift, this time of material creation, which is all that wealth is meant to symbolize and represent. Money is merely the potential energy of something. If Spirit advises us to embrace the Ace of Swords, then this shows through mastering ourselves, and our minds we are freely given the world. This I see is the philosophy of a hunter/gatherer who knows through their deep connection to the Earth that their needs will be provided for. Remember that magick is rooted in our connection to the Earth, honoring her, and understanding our place as an extension of her as life itself. So step into The Sun. Spirit guides us to follow our path, for it is all that will ever be ours, and our actions are the only thing we can ever truly own. Being yourself, and understanding what that means, is the only thing you are here on Earth to do.

[allyinthekeyofx]

Dispelling the Thatcher myths

Alex Nunns offers an antidote to the media fawning over Thatcher – and argues her biggest victory was getting her opponents to buy into her mythology

When a political leader dies it becomes compulsory to lie about their record. While much of Britain openly rejoiced at the death of Margaret Thatcher, the media snapped into reverential mode, giving over hours of airtime and several thousand miles of column inches to representatives of the ruling class to solemnly recite myths about her achievements.

This wouldn’t matter so much if, like Thatcher, these myths were dead, and weren’t still shaping our politics. But they are. So here are some of them, debunked.

No ‘economic miracle’

It’s said that Thatcher ‘didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country’. She didn’t. David Cameron’s melodramatic claim was a reference to Thatcher’s supposed reversal of Britain’s economic decline, when her policies are said to have brought about an economic miracle. But the performance of Britain’s economy in the 1980s was not miraculous – in fact it was below par, even if the deep recession of 1980-1 is ignored. Economic growth was higher and lasted longer in the 1950s and 1960s. And when the economy did pick up speed in the late 80s, it was because of a credit bubble that promptly burst and threw Britain back into recession.

It’s said that Thatcher was a tax-cutter. She wasn’t. The overall tax burden (all taxes as a percentage of GDP) rose from 39 percent in 1979 to 43 percent in 1989. It’s true that Thatcher cut taxes massively for the rich – the top rate of tax was 83 percent when Thatcher came to power, and it was 40 percent when she left. But VAT, which hits the poor harder than the rich, was just 8 percent before Thatcher, and was put up to 15 percent as soon as she gained power.

It’s said that Thatcher made the British people richer. She didn’t. In 1979 the poorest fifth of the population accounted for around 10 percent of after-tax income. By 1989 their share had fallen to 7 percent. Over the same period, the amount of income taken by the richest fifth rose from 37 percent to 43 percent. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.

It’s said that Thatcher restructured the economy and made British capitalism competitive. She didn’t restructure anything. Restructuring would have required a plan, which was anathema to her. Instead, she simply destroyed. Between 1980 and 1983, capacity in British industry fell by 24 percent. Unemployment shot up, eventually topping 3 million. Thatcher effectively shut down British manufacturing, much of it forever. In its place, she turned to the banks and the City, making their wildest dreams come true with the financial ‘Big Bang’. We know how that ended.

What conviction?

It’s said that Thatcher was a conviction politician, a ‘monetarist’ who stuck to her economic beliefs through tough times and was vindicated. She didn’t, and she wasn’t. Monetarism, the theory Thatcher adopted from American economist Milton Friedman, says the government should keep inflation low by restricting the money supply, and shouldn’t care about anything else, especially unemployment. Thatcher used monetarism as an intellectual cloak, but she never actually implemented pure Friedmanite monetarism. She quickly abandoned her looser British version when it crashed the economy in the early 80s. She was, however, radically successful at not caring about unemployment.

It’s said that Thatcher’s greatest free market legacy is privatisation. It isn’t. Thatcher’s privatisations did not create competitive free markets. Instead, the government went for as much money as it could get by selling off public assets in big, monopolistic lumps. The cash came in handy for the chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who used it to claim he had balanced the budget in 1988. But the legacy is one of parasitic cartels, like in the energy sector, where a few big companies are free to bleed customers dry.

It’s said Thatcher won the Cold War. She didn’t. The idea that the Soviet system collapsed because Thatcher and Reagan said mean things about communism deserves no more than one sentence.

It’s said Thatcher stood up for freedom and democracy in the world. She didn’t in South Africa, where she opposed sanctions against apartheid and called Nelson Mandela a ‘terrorist’. She didn’t in Chile, where she supported the murderer and torturer Augusto Pinochet. She didn’t in Cambodia, where she gave support to the Khmer Rouge, of all people. As for democracy, she espoused an ideology that valued market choices more highly than votes.

Rolling back the state?

It’s said that Thatcher ‘rolled back the state’. But, with the exception of the economy, where the state did retreat, Thatcher’s government intervened in areas of British society like none before it. It imposed draconian laws on one particular type of voluntary organisation – trade unions. It attacked local government, cut its funding and restricted its powers. It intervened directly in schools, setting a national curriculum for the first time.

It’s said that Thatcher restored law and order. She didn’t. Crime increased by a staggering 79 percent under Thatcher. There were riots in Brixton and Toxteth at the start of her reign, and riots and civil disobedience against the poll tax at the end of it.

It’s said that Thatcher created a ‘property-owning democracy’ through the sale of council houses. But this led to a chronic shortage of social housing which has pushed up house prices. Today, home ownership is falling and the private rental market is booming. The taxpayer is still subsidising housing to the tune of billions through housing benefit, but now the money goes to rich private landlords.

It’s said that Thatcher changed the class and gender profile of the Tory party. She didn’t. She made a big deal of being an outsider: a middle-class woman in a party of aristocrats. But she was an individual, an exception to the rule. She made no attempt to change party structures to help others like her. Today, the Tory leadership is dominated by Etonians and there are only four women in the cabinet. Thatcher always forgot to mention that her political career was financed by her millionaire husband. She expressed disdain for feminism and embraced patriarchal, male values.

It’s said that Thatcher was an electoral phenomenon. She wasn’t. She won three elections, each with a lower percentage of the vote than all previous post-war Tory victories. She never gained the support of more than a third of eligible voters. She won her second and third elections because a section of the Labour Party split off to form the SDP and the two squabbled over second place.

One claim that’s true

It’s claimed that Thatcher defeated the left. She did. This is the cliché that holds true. The big set-piece battle with the miners’ union was economically irrational – it cost the country £2.5 billion. But she was fighting more than the miners; she was fighting a class.

She told the truth later in life when she said that her legacy was New Labour. In so many of her other goals, she failed. Thatcherism has no institutional legacy because she put none in place. She left no cut and paste economic model because she didn’t apply the monetarism she espoused. All she left was her example, which had its most powerful effect on her erstwhile opponents.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did more to institutionalise Thatcherism than the woman herself. Before New Labour, in the early 1990s, in the midst of a recession, it was a truism that Thatcherism had been an economic failure. The fact that many of the myths discussed here have been revived is in large part due to New Labour. When even Thatcher’s opponents accept Thatcherism’s success, why should the media challenge the record?

Blair responded to her death by admitting (although understating) what everyone already knew, that ‘some of the changes she made in Britain were, in certain respects at least, retained by the 1997 Labour government’. It is often said that Blair’s only legacy will be Iraq, but he will also feature in the epilogue of every biography of Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher tore at the social fabric of Britain, destroyed swathes of its economy and inflicted vindictive harm on large sections of its population. But she built nothing. Her main success was in the minds of her opponents

[maooids]

Proletarian feminism: more than just proletarian and feminist together

Proletarian feminism is the theoretical and practical development of the struggle against patriarchy from the perspective of the proletariat and revolutionary communist politics.

It was first put forth by Indian revolutionary and communist Anuradha Ghandy. Like other trends within feminism, proletarian feminism sees the existence of patriarchy and the need for its overthrow – the difference lies in how proletarian feminism views patriarchy theoretically, and how it mobilizes in practice for its overthrow. Ghandy’s seminal article “Philosophical trends in the Feminist movement“, is perhaps the first coherent proletarian feminist text to lay out the differences with other feminisms. From this article’s criticism of the weaknesses of other feminist trends we can draw what are the dialectical strengths of a proletarian feminism, or at least the areas it has to tackle and the direction that Ghandy argues it should take. This is our summation of her argument for a proletarian feminism:

Adherence to a Marxist, historical materialist, and dialectical materialist framework of analysis. Proletarian feminism makes a criticism, however, of Socialist and Marxist feminism as philosophical trends that make the same claim. The main difference is on how to approach the question of emancipatory practice and the rejection of a commonality between women regardless of class, nationality, race, etc, while at the same time upholding the centrality of the class struggle for the destruction of patriarchy. Patriarchal oppression is part of class oppression, not a separate or complementary oppression, and has its root in class society as a historical materialist fact, neither born with capitalism as a mode of production, nor merely a residual or vestigial feudal remain, but rather an intrinsic part of any class society regardless of mode of production. As such, only communism can destroy patriarchy once and for all. Any attempts to separate patriarchy from class society as whole ultimately lead to strategic dead-ends for feminism.

Rejection of biological determinism in defining women, sex/gender roles, and of the implications of the sex/gender system for all people. This includes a rejection of sex/gender differences existing as a biological fact in any degree of independence from social, economic, and political relations. It doesn’t deny biological difference among people – these are obvious – it just rejects the claim that sex/gender ordering is principally related to biological differences, or the view that sex and gender stem from some biological essence. Not all women can or do get pregnant, for example, and yet they remain women. Not all women are assigned womanhood at birth, yet they are still women. This is not to say the gender binary is beyond criticism, just that the criticism of this binary based on biology is wrong. There is no female and male brain, but there is indeed a female and male social existence into which people fall – either forced into it, or because of identity.

Emphasis on the non-antagonistic aspects of the contradiction between proletarian men and proletarian women, rather than posing the contradiction as mainly antagonistic. Emphasis is placed on struggling against systemic oppression along with microaggressions and oppressions generated at the level of individual interactions, rather than only on the individual oppressions. Instead of men in general being the enemy, it is patriarchy, as part of class society and capitalism-imperialism, who is the enemy. Likewise, women are not simply the revolutionary subject: many women are defenders of the class system and thus are in the reactionary camp, even when they purport to seek to emancipate women.

An embrace of large-scale, mass mobilization of society as a whole, and proletarian masses specifically, as the method of struggle for liberation, as opposed to separatism, small group, “safe space” emphasis in other trends – as well as a rejection of the underlying theoretical frameworks that these separatist trends represent. While not hostile to trade unionist frameworks, it does advocate the formation of cadre and mass formations of a proletarian feminist nature as an exercise of self-determination within a wider proletarian and revolutionary movement.

Anti-imperialism and a global focus on patriarchy, rather than a focus solely on the needs of white, affluent, Euro-American women. This includes inserting into the conversation on sexuality the consequences of the sex trade, sex tourism, and pornography for poor, non-white, and oppressed nationality women, specially in the internal colonies, neo-colonial, semi-colonial, and colonial world. It also includes a rejection of unproblematized support for women’s emancipation for the purpose of supporting imperialist plunder, such as the advocacy by some feminists of equal opportunities in imperialist armed forces. The only army we fight for gender equality in is the People’s Army.

Advocacy of revolutionary organization and mass political activity and a rejection of reformist organizing and affinity-based activity – but not reforms themselves – and of the belief that organizational hierarchy is inherently patriarchal, masculine, and otherwise alien to women and thus opposed to feminism. A revolutionary party that contains people of all genders as cadre and leaders is not only seen as necessary, but advocated centrally as part of proletarian feminism. And this Party leading a People’s Army in which patriarchy is struggled against at any level, in which women develop as leaders and soldiers is also central to proletarian feminism.

Advocacy of all means of struggle, nonviolent and violent, in advancing the struggle against patriarchy from a proletarian and revolutionary perspective. This rejects all claims of violence being patriarchal as biological essentialism. This also recognizes the capacity of women to be as ruthless as men when it comes to being oppressors – the fact that men dominate society is not an issue of biological capacity or inherent nature of women. Cultural feminist claims of women being less violent or more loving are in fact based on patriarchal notions of sex/gender roles, which mirror male chauvinist arguments about the incapacity of women compared to men.

A historical materialist recognition and embrace of the experiences in the struggle against patriarchy and women’s oppression in the socialist movements and socialist revolutions in Russia, China, and others, as well as within movements exercising dual power today. This stands against the rejection by many feminists of proletarian and socialist contributions to feminism, either because of anti-communist propaganda or sectarian denialism. A very relevant example of this erasure by bourgeois feminism is the capture and erasure of proletarian women of the International Working Women’s Day into the International Women’s Day. Another example is the ignorance of the advanced nature of the practices and rules within existing people’s armies, such as the New People’s Army having marriage between people of all genders since the late 1990s.

[theskyexists]

But.....how else could they have resolved that though? People are working class because they don’t have money, they can’t go travelling because they don’t have money. In THIS system - that is. This system produces a middle class and a working class through its distribution of resources.

So - unless you rearrange the system - which is not something you can really do in DW to ensure continuity with the audience’s present and reality - you’ve got to make sure that they get money ? Because they deserve those resources!! (need i remind you that Donna also received a cash consolation prize?) Then again, by giving that to just ONE working class family - you might be blatantly implying that they were the only ‘deserving’ ones. (which is fuckin bullshit)

Alternate Pete’s story is pretty American Dream-ish tbf, but his success also produces Cybermen, doesn’t necessarily mean good things for his relationship with Jackie, and it being an alternate reality - kind of points at the ‘lottery’ nature of (monetary) success.

On the other hand - since it was an alternate universe - they MAY have been able to make reference to rearranging the system..... but I don’t see how they could have included that because it’s not like Rose was anything but selfish in that regard (if deeply empathetic) =>

There’s a parallel with the Doctor being an aristocrat. Swooping in and giving one working class girl a way out of ‘no a-levels’ no prospects (no capital) life - or whatever. And Nine isn’t really fair about it - he implies it’s a choice - that Rose (and humanity) is simply choosing to eat food, go to work and watch telly every day - instead of acknowledging that she’s caught up in a system that doesn’t value her and will not give her the same opportunities as others.

He gives her an opportunity, the resources, to travel - yes. But that’s the  American Dream narrative explicitly - SHE’s deserving. He says this literally! (though yeah Adam seems pretty middle class to me). i.e. the narrative mostly seems to be, being working class (Rose) and being less-than-valued (Donna) by wider society or immediate circles does not mean you are undeserving of a good life - the system is wrong in how it assigns value - but you STILL have to prove yourself - value SHOULD still be assigned!

In this case - by the Doctor? Who - again, though an exile, was raised as part of the elite on Gallifrey. A banished and homeless noble. He’s a brilliant, powerful alien who does not have to worry about his place in society or money.

I also think it’s a bit unfair to talk about how Rose loses her working class roots in series 2 when series 1 is predicated on her wanting to leave it all behind - to the degree that she would destroy herself for it - the quote in the gifs IS from series 1! In series 2, Rose makes fun of Queen Victoria and the Queen’s new organisation turns into a big problem later on. CEO Lumic creates CYBERMEN. Ten and Rose roll into a family’s house and terrorise the local patriarch. like??? ‘Love & Monsters’ has Rose storming back home to tell some guy off for upsetting her mum. The whole point is that she loves the people she came from - and she’s been shaped by her background - but the love she has for her life with the Doctor could give her (&him) was always more important than them - always - more important even than self-preservation. She’s given the money and the middle class existence yes - but she didn’t want that - she wanted to be free of those structures, like the Doctor is. That’s the power fantasy - and she attains that - until she doesn’t.

I guess I’m not defending the writing but saying series 1 wasn’t much better than series 2 in that regard lol (I love Rose and those series with all my heart mind)

(please don’t add any Rose hate, I’m just upset about her writing) (because it’s as if the only reason she’s given a life is so the Doctor can pull her away from it)

[englishchinesetranslations]

Feminist icon Kate Millett passed away recently in Paris at the age of 82. Her 1970 book Sexual Politics, called “the Bible of Women’s Liberation” by the New York Times, had a seismic effect on feminist thought and launched Millett as what the Times called “a defining architect of second-wave feminism.” In a cover story that same year, TIME magazine crowned her “the Mao Tse-tung of Women’s Liberation.” Fellow feminist Andrea Dworkin said that Millett woke up a sleeping world. Kate’s sister Mallory, a CFO for several corporations, resides in New York City with her husband of over twenty years. In a riveting article from a few years back bluntly titled, “Marxist Feminism’s Ruined Lives,” Mallory revealed what she saw of the subversive undercurrent of her sister’s passionate radicalism. Asked for her thoughts on Kate’s legacy, Mallory shared her very personal responses, which follow. Mark Tapson: Your sister was an icon of female empowerment, but what do you think the reality of feminism has been for generations of women since Kate helped launch the second wave of the movement? Mallory Millett: How bizarre it is to have to argue the obvious; to have to prove over and over again what is self-evident so let me be as offensive as I possibly can: Men are men and women are women. They are essentially different and designed for a natural division of labor. Period. I get a kick out of the feminists’ love affair with the word “empowerment.” They have clever formulas for ensnaring hapless souls into their deceits. One of their slicker moves is to create a vocabulary designed to get around long-held beliefs, mores, taboos or fears. “Pro-choice” is their Newspeak euphemism for the casual murder of an human being; “Dreamers” means illegal immigrants; “Progressives” denotes a group dragging us back to the cave; “Sanctuary City” means a place where no actual US citizen is safe. This “empowerment” thing makes me especially crazy. We need only go back to Eden in Genesis where God commanded Adam not to eat a certain apple. Eve demanded he eat it. Adam obeyed Eve against the will of God Himself. That’s not power? It only proves that man will do anything to please woman even if it means going against the wishes of his Almighty Creator. The point of the story is not that woman is evil but that woman is all-powerful and definitely runs the show. Woman sets the boundaries. Man is lost if he is surrounded by bad women. Mae West’s famous double entendre is so appropriate: “When women go wrong men go right after them.” The Genesis admonition to women is to be careful of your influence over others because you already, innately, wield great power… actually, if we believe The Bible, all the power. Having had that power, feminists were so greedy for more that they destroyed our society in order to prove they were exactly like men. In doing so they have destroyed the American family and our children which has resulted in the demolition of society. We are now in a world where Satanism is on the rise, where judges are removing the Ten Commandments from city squares, where abortion is a mere trifle. We allowed [the late atheist activist] Madalyn Murray O’Hair to remove prayer from the classroom and Kate Millett to remove mommy from the home. Deadly combo! My thesis is this: when men ran the world and women ran society we had a chance to conduct our lives in some semblance of balance, but women have abdicated their running of society and thus, it has collapsed dramatically. Women forced their way into the running-the-world deal and now we have a world gone mad. And the beautiful society which we Western women built is in tatters. Moms decided they were the same as men so they deserted the home and babies to grab their briefcases and rush out to run the world. When women ran society power emanated from the home. Men labored to keep their families sheltered, warm, clad and fed while women mostly stayed in the home to run the children and the community. Mother oversaw the household and carefully watched the children’s behavior. Most of the neighborhood women knew each other and had informal meetings in their living rooms and kitchens, called “coffee klatches.” It was here that the community developed ground rules on how to manage children and husbands. Any mother was free to chastise anyone else’s child should they misbehave. It was pretty unheard of for someone to say, “How dare you correct my child!” They would agree amongst themselves what was desired behavior. Good manners were required and trained. Neighbors backed each other up. It was expected. The essential rules that Moms formed in their infants and homes radiated outwardly into streets, schools, offices, boardrooms, departments, factories and agencies to form the framework of Western ethics. The communities, churches and schools all echoed the same values because most people went to Church or Temple and so, the foundation of our mores being Judeo/Christian, Mom’s rules were designed by the Ten Commandments. Many towns didn’t lock their doors, even at night. So, after fifty years of the almighty “consciousness-raising” experiment to empower women, and during the recent Harvey Weinstein [sexual assaults] scandal, what we are hearing from the little girlish voices of the victims is, “I froze, I was paralyzed. I gave in because I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified!” Hey, that’s some weird kind of empowerment. When I was a girl we did what our moms instructed: we yelled “NO,” slapped his face, and left the room or called a cop. MT: Many people aren’t aware of feminism’s roots in cultural Marxism, but you were present at early meetings of the revolutionaries who would go on to form NOW, the National Organization for Women. Can you tell us what you witnessed behind the scenes about their true aims? MM: In 1969 I attended consciousness-raising sessions in New York City with my sister, Kate, where a group of 10-15 women sat around a long oval table and plotted the New Feminist Movement and the founding of NOW. Their template was Mao’s China and the group confessionals conducted in each village in order to “cleanse the people’s thinking.” The burning objective of Kate’s “consciousness-raising” was “the destruction of the American family,” as she deemed it “a patriarchal institution devoted to the oppression and enslavement of women and children.” They went on to form NOW and, with that organization, achieve their stated goal of taking down the Patriarchy through a massive coordinated promotion of promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, abortion and homosexuality. Their proposed method was to infiltrate every institution in the nation: the universities, the media, primary and secondary schools, PTAs, Teachers Unions, city and state governments, the library system, the executive branches of government as well as the judiciaries and legislatures. One of their most desired results was the smashing of every taboo in Western culture. Imagine that! Think of that alone! The normalizing of every taboo: polygamy, bestiality, Satanism, pornography, promiscuity, witchcraft, pedophilia – all activities which rot the human soul and city. Nothing burns down a society with such dispatch and totality as the unleashing of taboos. My sister Kate decided her contribution would be to establish Women’s Studies courses at every U.S. college and university, which she efficiently executed. On examination, these courses emerge as nothing more than Marxism 101. Kate taught that the family is literally a slave unit with the man as the bourgeoisie and the women and children the proletariat. Two of her own books were required reading. In these classes young girls are conditioned into murderers who will dispense with their own precious unborn child as readily as a dirty Kleenex without a twinge because “it’s my body.” I can’t hear of the 70 million Americans killed before birth without a catch in my heart over Kate’s role in this. She taught girls to “be an outlaw; be a damned outlaw, cuz all the laws were made by evil white men. Be a slut and be proud of it!” Now we have girls parading about with the word “SLUT” emblazoned across their tee-shirts. Orgies? “Absolutely! Try everything. There are no rules.” So the woman whose job it is to construct the basic rules threw them all to the wind. Then she ran away from home and from any babies she didn’t kill in order to run the world. We’ve had women running the SEC, the Secret Service, the IRS, the DNC, yada yada yada. They run so many things now and a great many are under investigation with one female head of department after another either lying or refusing to answer legitimate questions being asked by the people (i.e., congressional committees). Aren’t public officials required to answer to the people? “Be an outlaw, be a damned outlaw!” So, they infiltrated every system and department in education, media, entertainment, government, justice, Wall Street, you name it and they’re there. For decades since they started their stealth invasion the father in every sitcom has been debased and, most of all, clueless. I am dumbfounded at the efficiency with which these women recruited others and wheedled their way into everything in fifty short years. Oh, yes, woman is one hell of a powerful force. Now, we have a nightmare army of militant feminists: Lois Lerner, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Huma Abedin, Nancy Pelosi, Oprah Winfrey, Samantha Power, Elizabeth Warren, Cheryl Mills, Maxine Waters, Donna Brazile, plus the main outlaw, Hillary Clinton, lying and obfuscating us into chaos. That’s what outlaws create: chaos! Today, 60% of babies who escape abortion are born outside of marriage. On top of that they are miserably reared, thrown into child-care shortly after birth, with not only a lousy education but a miseducation in classrooms infiltrated by Mao, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Howard Zinn, Naom Chomsky, Marx, and Saul Alinsky rather than readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic, American History, and Civics. Our children now score poorly compared with other countries, whereas before the feminist “experiment” we led in almost all categories. In 1964 we had 90% literacy and 5% illegitimate births. We now score shockingly low on literacy (38% of American men read at the lowest levels; only 11% of men and 12% of women are proficient readers) and of course, those out-of-wedlock births at 60%. I would say that raising several ill-prepared fatherless generations of slackers, meth and opioid users, porn dogs, disheveled rockers, and illiterates speaks poorly of any degree of empowerment in parenting. Most parenting is done by absent single women since two-thirds of mothers are raising their youngsters outside of marriage. So, we have the filthy clothes, ten o’clock shadows on guys, shocking grammar, plethora of tattoos, sullen misfits in torn filthy clothing listening to violent hate-filled so-called music; entitled attitudes and non-existent manners say it all. Empowerment? Why, the facts scream that feminists are two generations of the worst-ever educators of America’s children. In what manner does this speak of empowerment? Woman, by your fruits are you known! And those fruits didn’t come out of your briefcases. MT: In obituaries upon Kate’s passing, the news media wrote largely glowingly of her influence, but what do you think the good and bad of her feminist legacy has been? MM: As I scan the wreckage of our beautiful America, knowing that my own sister was in great part responsible, I feel as if my heart has been kicked down the stairs. So, on pondering this question about the good and the bad of militant feminism, it reminds me of the joke in which the reporter asks, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” MT: Can you tell us a bit about Kate’s mental instability, and if you think it had anything to do with her radicalism? Or vice versa – do you think her radicalism affected her mental state? MM: Kate was mentally ill for as long as I remember. She was five when I was born and our elder sister Sally says that once I arrived, Kate was hanging over my bassinet plotting my murder. We shared a bedroom from my birth. From my earliest memory I recall trembling from the vibrations of her insanity. She was the most disturbed, megalomaniacal, evil and dishonest person I have ever known. She tried to kill me so many times that it’s now an enormous blur of traumatizing horrors. She was a sadist, a torturer, a deeply-engrained bully who took immense pleasure in hurting others. Incorrigible and ruthless, she was expelled multiple times from every school she attended. I spent my childhood with heart hammering as I tiptoed through the house so as not to be noticed by the dreadful Kate. Our mother was helpless, paralyzed with terror in the face of Kate. It’s a grinding hardship to bring oneself to write such harsh things about one’s own blood. It took some bucking up for me to start telling the truth. I must say here that, always and forever, I had a reservoir of love for my sister Kate, but reality trumps all and her brand of nihilistic darkness was an implacable obstacle. I spent decades laboring to reason her into the light. One day my counselor guessed it: “So, do you understand that you’re trying to make your sister sane?” “I know,” I said, thinking of her stiff smile, which was never real. Her smile was that chilling kind in which the mouth is rigidly arranged into a smile shape showing all the teeth, but it’s obviously a joyless mask. “If only she could be happy. If only she could cease being so agitated and miserable.” “You cannot make that happen,” said my advisor. “We cannot talk another into sanity. That’s entirely up to her.” “But what can I do?” I pleaded. “Sometimes, you just have to leave the room.” I understood in a flash that, so loyally attached to her was I, it had never occurred to me I could actually, simply, leave the room. Kate announced her atheism very early on and the vacuum created sucked in even more corruption, lying, stealing, fury and domination of others. If God and the afterlife are abandoned then you’re going to be cranky, morose, generally angry, and it’s simple to toss out the Ten Commandments. I would venture that her mental instability created her affinity for the atheism of Marxism. To quote Dennis Prager: “My belief in God and the afterlife keeps me sane. The thought that just this life is all there is would mean that life is random and pointless. It means I will never again see those I love. This would drive me mad. I don’t see how it wouldn’t drive anyone mad who cares about suffering and who loves anyone. So, is there an afterlife? If there is a God, of course there’s an afterlife.” Most everyone on the left is atheistic, depressed, dark and miserable, and they want us all to be miserable. Winston Churchill said, “Socialism results in the equal sharing of misery.” They detest happiness. Nothing makes them more miserable than another’s happiness. There is no more comedy! Since they swooped in and took over Hollywood and Broadway, everywhere you search for comic relief is dark, dark, dark. Surf through 200 TV channels and it is grim, grim, grim and then there’s a dismemberment. Our “entertainment” has become death, terror, horror and filth. Americans were funny people – funniest in the world after the Brits. First, they lost humor and then we followed. Tina Fey? Major funny-killer. Lena Dunham? A disgrace! Saturday Night Live? David Letterman? Kill me, just shoot me. I love the term “Feminazi,” as these humorless women are, indeed, fascists, killers of faith and society. So many people think the rise of women and the evisceration of our culture are somehow coincidental. But it’s been calculated and deliberate. It’s the only way America can be “fundamentally transformed” into the Marxist test-tube to dazzle the world. It’s the result of HATE: hating God, hating life, hating society, hating men, hating babies, hating history, hating our fathers, hating our families, hating our white male Founders, hating happiness, hating heterosexuality, hating Western civ. Is this not madness? I was with them at that table as they founded the Women’s Movement and NOW. The entire stated point of their activities was to destroy the American family and with that, Western Civilization. Is this not crazy? They were tooth-grittingly determined. They were driven by destruction and deeply violent impulses toward men and the patriarchy. Their goal? To establish a matriarchy in order to end all war because that’s what men do, wage war. They believed that if women ran everything there would be no more war. In their madness they have conspired to destroy masculinity, drugging our little boys while trying to remake them into little girls and thus, emboldening our enemies who now see us as easy pickings. No nation is easier to overwhelm than one which has feminized the men and put females at the head of the tribe. Matriarchies never survive – never have, never will! So, they plotted for Hillary Clinton to go to the White House simply because she was female. She is a proven liar, a persecutor of her husband’s sexual victims, a woman whose campaign for President was remarkably incompetent. Yet, they were certain (still are) that she was up to running America and to be the Leader of The Free World! She couldn’t even run her own campaign. But that didn’t matter to Kate and her pals. She was a woman and that was enough. Is this not sexism? Is this not madness? Kate’s life story is a saga of our family desperately trying to have her involuntarily received into a mental institution where they may have helped her. She vividly chronicles most of it in two of her books, Flying and The Looney-Bin Trip. Over and over our elder sister Sally, our mother and I, and various nephews and nieces endeavored to have her hospitalized. This was especially true after an incident when I was trapped alone with Kate in an apartment in Sacramento for a week and she did not allow me to sleep for five days as she raged and ranted, eyes rolling in her head, frothing at the mouth and holding chats with “little green men.” Not knowing a single person in Sacramento, I had nowhere to turn. Too terrified to go to sleep, I wasn’t sure she even knew who I was but I could imagine a butcher knife thrust into my back as I slept. Big sister Sally came from Nebraska to rescue me. After that there was an enormous effort by the family wherein we all took Kate to court for legal commitment in Minnesota. She hired a male feminist hotshot New York lawyer and managed to swim back out into the world to hurt, menace, and harm ever more people. When Sally called last September to say Kate dropped dead in a Paris hotel room that morning, I was flooded with such indescribable relief that she could no longer spread her filth, lies and misery, nor could she go on threatening the lives and safety of others. Once, she wrote an entire book describing her deep passion for her lover, Sita. Sita’s response was to kill herself. My biggest anxiety about Kate has always been that one day she would take out a family of five on the Saw Mill River Parkway as – laced with liquor, wine, lithium, marijuana, and God knows what else – she hurtled, ranting and raging, up that difficult road. For many years I have braced for that call in the night. She had enablers everywhere. She was worshiped on all seven continents. We did a massive intervention with twelve of us: family and friends, a psychiatrist, two ambulances standing by, several cops, and she managed to elude us all by hopping on a plane for Ireland. Her “instability,” as you put it, was apparent enough to both airline and cops in Shannon that she was committed by the police straight from the plane to an Irish psychiatric ward whereupon her ubiquitous groupies – this time Irish – managed her escape through a second-story window in the middle of the night. Without a doubt, over time, once she became enmeshed in the larger group of leftist activists around the world, her madness, buoyed by their lunacy, became even greater and more impossible to penetrate. Their groupthink is so dense, so full of lies, the vocabulary is so deceptive and intricately designed to brainwash, that just to witness it and their interactions from a distance is beyond alarming. After we buried our mother I never spoke with Kate again, as I’d finally come to accept that there is no honest communication with this mental illness that is today’s liberalism. Finally, I left the room. The original article can be found at: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269251/my-sister-kate-destructive-feminist-legacy-kate-mark-tapson

[cabiba]

I don’t remember ever not being a feminist. I toddled in marches of the 1970s with my mother. She became a second wave feminist in the 1960s after being denied a mortgage without a male guarantor and being told by her employer that she could not study for accountancy exams because “There’s no accounting for women.” Briefly flirting with radical feminism, she found their views extreme and unreasonable and was berated for her heterosexual relationships and love of feminine clothing (see her poem “Woman the Barricades“). She found her home in liberal feminism and from there was active in writing, marching and protesting for legal changes which would give her the same opportunities as men. By the late 1980s, she felt the main legal battles had been won, and largely retired from active campaigning though she continues to identify as a feminist and study women’s history.

Given this influence, of course I was a feminist, a liberal feminist. Growing up, I spoke angrily about the legality of rape within marriage (criminalized in 1990), and won a personal battle to take woodwork at school rather than cookery (I was terrible at it but not noticeably worse than I am at cooking). I criticized sexist attitudes at work, which were still quite unapologetic in the 90s, informing my boss that he was a “good boy” when he called me a “good girl” and refusing to say anything apart from “cheep” to any man who referred to me as a “bird.” Liberal feminism was aggressive then, but a quite different quality of aggression to the spiteful malevolence we see now. It was optimistic, almost playful. We were confident that we were winning. It was fun seeing how we could disconcert the perpetrators of sexist stereotypes and challenge casual sexism, often humorously. We did not think older men (or women) with sexist assumptions were terrible people or want them punished. We simply wanted them to realize the times had changed and catch up. Women are everywhere now. Get used to it.

At times, we needed to work with the radical feminists. Rape victims were still being dismissed or disbelieved. People still blamed victims for their clothing quite respectably. This needed to become routinely frowned upon. RadFems, who insisted that patriarchy was evident in everything, that the idea of gender needed to be destroyed and that men as a whole were dangerous and violent, were regarded as the biggest internal problem the movement had to contend with by liberal feminists. Mostly, their extreme input into feminist discussion was met with eye-rolling and “Perhaps we don’t need to go quite that far.” We were unprepared for the problem rising in our own liberal branch.

From the 1980s, some internal criticisms of liberal feminism began to be made. Liberal feminism as a whole was charged with not recognizing the additional problems faced by black and Asian women and lesbians, and being largely centered on middle-class problems. These were valid criticisms which needed addressing and prioritizing. All women must have equality. Many liberal feminists began to dedicate more time to LGBT rights and highlight the particular vulnerability of women living in communities which adhered to oppressive patriarchal religion, particularly Islam, and subjected women and girls to “honor” violence and genital mutilation. They did this within universal liberal feminism and some still do but in this decade, the academic shift in the humanities and social sciences towards postmodernism began, and gradually filtered through to feminism in praxis. Intersectionality was forming.

People are often confused about what postmodernism is and what it has to do with feminism. Very simplistically, it was an academic shift pioneered by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard which denied that reliable knowledge could ever be attained and claimed that meaning and reality themselves had broken down. It rejected large, overarching explanations (meta-narratives) which included religion but also science, and replaced them with subjective, relative accounts (mini-narratives) of the experiences of an individual or sub-cultural group. These ideas gained great currency in the humanities and social sciences and so became both an artistic movement and a social “theory.” They rejected the values of universal liberalism, the methods of science and the use of reason and critical thinking as the way to determine truth and form ethics. Individuals could now have not only their own moral truths but their own epistemological ones. The expression “It’s true for me” encapsulates the ethos of postmodernism. To claim to know anything to be objectively true (no matter how well-evidenced) is to assert a meta-narrative and to “disrespect” the contrary views of others which is oppressive (even if those views are clearly nonsense.) The word “scientism” was created for the view that evidence and testing are the best way to establish truths.

At its height, postmodernism as an artistic movement produced non-chronological, plotless literature and presented urinals as art. In social theory, postmodernists “deconstructed” everything considered true and presented all as meaningless. However, having done this, there was nowhere else to go and nothing more to say. In the realm of social justice, nothing can be accomplished unless we accept that certain people in a certain place experience certain disadvantages. For this, a system of reality needs to exist, and so new theories of gender and race and sexuality began to emerge comprised of mini-narratives. These categories were held to be culturally constructed and constructed hierarchically to the detriment of women, people of color and LGBTs. Identity was paramount.

Liberal feminist aims gradually shifted from the position:

“Everyone deserves human rights and equality, and feminism focuses on achieving them for women.”

to

“Individuals and groups of all sexes, races, religions and sexualities have their own truths, norms and values. All truths, cultural norms and moral values are equal. Those of white, Western, heterosexual men have unfairly dominated in the past so now they and all their ideas must be set aside for marginalized groups.”

Liberal feminism had shifted from the universality of equal human rights to identity politics. No longer were ideas valued on their merit but on the identity of the speaker and this was multifaceted, incorporating sex, gender identity, race, religion, sexuality and physical ability. The value of an identity in social justice terms is dependent on its degree of marginalization, and these stack up and vie for primacy. This is where liberal feminism went so badly wrong. When postcolonial guilt fought with feminism, feminism lost. When it fought with LGBT rights, they lost too.

So aware of Western imperialism having trampled on other cultures historically, Western liberal feminism now embraced their most patriarchal aspects. A Western liberal feminist can, on the same day, take part in a slut walk to protest Western women being judged by their clothing and accuse anyone criticizing the niqab of Islamophobia. She can demand the prosecution of a Christian baker for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same sex-couple, and condemn the planning of a Gay Pride march through a heavily Muslim area as racist. Many intersectional feminists do not limit themselves to the criticism of other white, Western feminists but pour vitriolic, racist abuse on liberal Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and LGBT activists. The misogyny and homophobia of Christianity may be criticized by all (quite rightly) but the misogyny and homophobia of Islam by none, not even Muslims. The right to criticize one’s own culture and religion is seemingly restricted to white westerners (The best analysis of “The Racism of Some Anti-racists” is by Tom Owolade).

Universal liberal feminists were horrified by this development. Our old adversaries, the radical feminists, looked positively rational in comparison. They might tell us we are culturally conditioned into internalized misogyny, and they certainly had a pessimistic and paranoid worldview but at least it was coherent. The intersectional feminists were not even internally consistent. In addition to the cultural relativity, the rules change day by day as new sins against social justice are invented. We opposed the radical feminists for their extreme antipathy towards men but at least they shared a bond of sisterhood with each other. The intersectional feminists not only exhibit great prejudice against men but also turn on each other at the slightest imagined infraction of the rules. Having not the slightest regard for reason or evidence, they vilify and harass those imagined to have transgressed.

In addition to their failure to support the most vulnerable women in society, intersectional feminism cultivated a culture of victimhood, negatively impacting all women in society but particularly young women. Women are oppressed, we are told, by men explaining anything, spreading their legs on a train and committing vague sins like “expecting unequal amounts of emotional labour.” If they call out to us or proposition us, we should be terrified. If obnoxious men attempt to grope us or succeed, we have experienced an appalling sexual assault from which we may never recover. Not only are we oppressed by seemingly all men but by anyone expressing anti-feminist ideas or feminist ones we don’t like. More than this, we are rendered “unsafe” by them, particularly those women who are trans and may have to hear that a trans exclusionary radical feminist has said something in a place they don’t have to go to. It is hard to imagine how women manage to survive leaving the house at all.

Even in the house, we cannot be entirely sure of “safety.” Men might say mean things to us on the internet, and we couldn’t possibly cope with that. In reality, I find the opposite problem more concerning. Recently, in a disagreement with an intersectional feminist man, he began to change his mind! Much encouraged, I continued the discussion. After some time, I checked his bio and spotted that he was carrying on a parallel conversation with another man in which he was expressing exactly the same views he had since changed in our conversation. Challenging him on this, I was informed that he did not feel he should disrespect my lived experience as a woman by contradicting it with his own views as a man. However, he still disagreed with me and felt able to say so to another man. I could not get him to see that all this had achieved was excluding me from the conversation and wasting my time. I might as well have been made to withdraw to the drawing room to let the men talk.

Perhaps men might criticize our academic writing or blogs? Richard Dawkins was accused of misogyny for mocking a postmodernist sociology essay that happened to have been written by a woman (He’d mocked one written by a man a few days earlier). He was asked, by numerous people, why he hated intelligent women or why he had to criticize women’s writing? Surely, it should be clear to everyone that not doing so excludes women from academic discussion? If we want to be taken seriously as academics (or as bloggers), we need people to be able to criticize our work.

Like many universal liberal feminists of my generation and above, I decided to hang on and try to tackle, from the inside, the problems of cultural relativity, science denial, raging incivility and the disempowerment of women by feminists. This resulted in my being blocked by feminists, told I am not a feminist, called an “anti-feminist,” a “MRA,” a “misogynist” and even a “rape apologist” (I had suggested that the men who invented date-rape drug detecting nail polish were well-intentioned). I have been told to fuck myself with a rusty chainsaw, and that I am a confused middle-aged woman who does not understand society. Following one encounter with a feminist in which I said I did not get death and rape threats from men, a new account with a male name was suddenly set up which began sending me some.

At the same time, non-feminists were telling me that I was not what they understood by “feminist” or even asserting that I was not a feminist. I assured them I was because I was concerned about female genital mutilation, “honor” violence and forced marriage affecting British women today and rarely prosecuted. I am opposed to the disempowerment of young women who are being told that they cannot cope with different ideas and that criticism is abusive by feminists in universities and schools. Are these not pressing issues affecting women? My friend, Kath, a recovering RadFem, helped clarify my thoughts on this.

This is true. I agree with Ayaan Hirsi Ali that western feminism needs to stop focusing on “trivial bullshit.” I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for women who feel traumatized and excluded by scientists’ shirts or video games. When it comes to the little things, the playing field becomes much more even. We all have gendered expectations we’d rather not comply with. I suggest not doing it. There is very little point in complaining about gender expectations whilst perpetuating them. The idea that women cannot defy such expectations because of fear of disapproval seems contrary to the entire ethos of feminist activism and those who have gone before us.

I think it’s time I accepted that “feminism” no longer means “the aim for equal rights for women” but is understood to refer to the current feminist movement which encompasses so much more and very little that I want to be associated with. I posted this on Twitter recently:

The serious issues faced by British women that I want to be involved in are encompassed by human rights activism, and the disempowerment of young women can only be opposed, sadly, by opposing feminism itself.

I used to be pleased when people told me that I had made them think more positively about feminism, but now I fear that this may simply have prevented that person from criticizing a movement that really needs to be criticized. Feminism has lost its way and should not have public respectability until it remedies this. It seems that more and more people are realizing this. A recent study showed that only 7% of Brits identify as feminist although over two thirds support gender equality. My sadness at abandoning the identity bequeathed to me by my mother is mixed with anger when I consider that she too, a woman who was instrumental in getting banking qualifications opened to women, would now be regarded as deeply problematic.

HELEN PLUCKROSE Helen Pluckrose is an exile from the humanities with research interests in late medieval/early modern religious writing for and about women. She is critical of postmodernism and cultural constructivism which she sees as currently dominating the humanities.